


Curse of Poison Ivy

by echowolfM



Category: DCU (Comics), Harley Quinn (Comics), Poison Ivy (Comics)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27781966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echowolfM/pseuds/echowolfM
Summary: Pamela Isley was dead. Six feet under. Cold as stone…She was dead.And it was all Harley’s fault.
Relationships: Pamela Isley & Harleen Quinzel, Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel
Comments: 23
Kudos: 86





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lizarr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizarr/gifts).



> Updates every Monday  
> Idea by Lizarr- I hope you enjoy!

It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

Harley looked down upon the grave at her feet, Selina supporting her quietly by her side. _Pamela Isley_ was neatly carved into the stone face, along with her birth and death date. She almost didn’t have a grave at all, but Batman had taken care of everything while Harley was in Arkham.

It had barely been a week, and for a few days Harley had convinced herself none of it was real. Ivy was just hurt and hiding away, waiting to heal enough to bust Harley out of Arkham after their horrifically bad heist. But this funeral made it real.

This grave made it real.

Pamela Isley was dead. Six feet under. Cold as stone…

She was dead.

And it was all Harley’s fault.

…

Harley felt empty when she returned to Arkham. She had been given special permission to attend Ivy’s funeral, and ever since she could barely muster the energy to get out of bed. It took too much effort to clean herself or sit with the other inmates in the dining hall, and it almost took an act of god for her to hold down any food or drink.

Ivy had been dead for going on three weeks now, and Harley had never felt so lonely before. Not when her father had left her, or when her mother said she never wanted her. Not when her brother died and even when Joker beat her… all of the times she had felt alone in this world before couldn’t compare to this.

Selina called every chance she could get, and she’d tell Harley about the happenings outside, but Harley never really listened. She just let Selina’s voice flow through her head and desperately tried to feel something- _anything_ at all.

The other rogues tried to comfort her here and there. They’d say their hellos and goodbyes when they passed by her cell, and they’d offer compliments and encouragement on the days where she managed to leave her bed. There were a lot of rogues in Arkham, and Harley distantly knew a breakout was probably in the works, but she hadn’t the energy to care.

Her guess was right. Four weeks after Ivy’s passing, Harvey Dent lead a mass breakout attempt, and against her weak protests, Riddler and Killer Croc had dragged her out with them. Harleen Quinzel knew she should have stayed in Arkham. She was deeply depressed and not in any position to care for herself.Harley Quinn hadn’t the strength to take herself back to Arkham after Riddler deposited her onto Selina’s front porch.

Selina was surprised to find her and offered to bring her back to Arkham for help, but that building reminded Harley of her.

She would lie in her cell remembering their shrink sessions before she was a Rogue and of the many escape attempts and successes thereafter. She would remember teasing each other from their cells and trash talking the other Rogues in order to rile them up and start riots- well, she remembered doing most of the trash talking while Ivy muttered some really inflammatory stuff under her breath.

The memories in that building felt nice as she was remembering them, but the moment they ended the weight of Ivy’s death would come crashing down upon her again. Selina didn’t force her to go back to Arkham, and she offered up her couch instead of sending Harley to the apartment she and Ivy had shared- well, the apartment Ivy own and Harley mooched off of.

It’s amazing the things you realize when someone you love dies.

The things you could have said or done. The things you broke and never replaced or paid for because you knew she wouldn’t stay angry forever. The… oh, there was just too many things to regret.

Selina tried to dote on her for a while, but she was a busy woman and couldn’t be with her for more than a couple days before having to go back to doing whatever she did for work. Harley understood, and it wasn’t like she wanted Selina hovering over her at all hours.

She liked the quiet of the house when she was alone. Ivy liked quiet. It made her feel closer to Ivy. Like she was going to come around the corner on those quiet feet of hers. Maybe, if Harley listened hard enough, she might hear the floorboard creak a little and she’d look over the back of the couch and see a face framed by fiery red hair.

It never happened though.

Ivy wasn’t going to come back. Harley knew it, but she still hoped anyways.

…

Another month passed before Harley even knew it. Batman had been by a few times, asking if she wanted to go back to Arkham. She declined every time, not wanting to go back to that terrible place. He offered to get her help, have therapists and doctors come to Selina’s apartment, and she declined that as well.

Harley didn’t want to move on. She didn’t want to forget all that Ivy had done for her. She was more than happy with sitting in her memories for day on end, even if it hurt coming out of them. She could always go back to those memories and Ivy would be waiting for her.

She’d greet Harley the usual way, with a roll of her eyes but a genuine smile tugging at her lips as she accepted a hug and kiss. She remembered the sweet smell of Ivy’s hair and the feel of her Green skin. She remembered holding onto Ivy from behind and following her around on her heels as she finished tending to her plants in the apartment-

Harley shot up on the couch.

_The plants!_

Ivy’s apartment had been filled to the brim with plants. Her babies.

It had been two months since Ivy had died. She grimaced at the thought of all of those pretty flowers and ferns slowly drying up as the days went on.

“Harley? You okay” A voice drew her out of her panic. Selina had brought her one of those ‘healthy’ tv dinners.

“I gotta go back to the apartment.” Harley said automatically.

Selina’s face brightened a little, then turned worried. “Tomorrow, Harls. It’s late right now.”

“No, you don’t understand!” Harley struggled to free herself from her cocoon of blankets. “I’ve gotta take care of Ivy’s babies!”

Selina set down the food and helped her. “The plants? Harls, it’s been months. They’re all dead by now.”

“There’s gotta be a few that survived!” Harley couldn’t believe they were all gone. Ivy would have wanted her to take care of her babies while she was gone. She couldn’t stand the idea that she had failed Ivy again and killed the one thing Ivy loved above anything else.

“Here, fine.” Selina shoved the plate of food in Harley’s hands. “If you promise to eat this entire plate on the way, I’ll drive you to the apartment right now. Deal?”

“Deal!”

…It was easier said than done. After not eating much for two months, choking down a full plate of food was borderline impossible. Actually, it was impossible. She was maybe half way done when she started gagging every time she tried to swallow. Selina let her stop when she realized what was wrong.

Despite her stomach weighing her down, Harley climbed the stairs up to the rooftop apartment without stopping once. Selina carried the little trash bag she kept in her car with them in case Harley had to throw up. She didn’t, and both of them counted that as a win.

As she climbed each step, she ran through all of the plants she could think of. She couldn’t remember the scientific names that Ivy always used, but she did remember the ones they nicknamed together.

Frank, Trevor, Billy, Bobby, and Joe, Little Timmy, Steve… lots of boy names now that she thought about it. But she knew where each one was and the ones they named were the ones she was praying were still alright.

But even as she begged to a god she hadn’t believed in since she was ten, reaching that apartment door brought her to her _real_ come to Jesus moment.

Ivy wasn’t going to be there to greet her. To roll her eyes when Harley came in squealing at her about some lone heist she pulled or the trouble she got herself into. She wasn’t going to peck Harley on the lips sweetly or hug her tightly if she had a bad day.

Ivy was dead.

She was never going to be home again.

“Harley?” Selina placed a hand on her shoulder.

Swallowing down her feelings, she ran through her list of names again: Frank, Trevor, Billy, Bobby, and Joe, Little Timmy, Steve… If even one of them was alive, she’d be happy.

Taking the spare key from a little hidden panel before the door, she unlocked the apartment and stepped through the threshold.

And collapsed to her knees.

Their usually lush green apartment was now decorated with new colors, namely brown, grey, sickly yellow.

Selina followed her down as Harley looked over all of the plants that Ivy had tended to so carefully. They were either dead or so far gone that Harley had no idea if she’d be able to bring them back. She had a black thumb no matter how hard she tried when it came to the finicky ones.

She felt tears fall down her cheeks. She had thought she had cried all those out ages ago. She sat there for what felt like ages before she ran through her list again. Frank, Trevor, Billy, Bobby, and Joe, Little Timmy, and Steve. One of then _had_ to be alive.

With Selina’s help, Harley stood on wobbly legs and started making her way through the apartment. Frank, Trevor, and Billy were connected to Ivy, so she wasn’t super surprised to find them all dead. They were all meat eaters and their health often coincided with Ivys. If their flowers ever looked a little extra wilty, she knew she needed to pamper Ivy a little more that day.

Billy, Bobby, and Joe were all Venus fly traps, and she was the most hopeful about them. They ate flies in order to survive, but she guessed they needed more water than she thought as they were all brown and rotten. Little Timmy and Steve were her only hope, but there was one thing about those particular plants.

They were in the bedroom. On the nightstands next to their respective bedsides.

Instead of checking on them immediately, she scoured the rest of the house for signs of life. All of the ferns in the kitchen were dead, the living room was a wasteland, a few of the plants on the balcony were still kicking, but they were outside and Gotham was a rain city so she wasn’t super surprised. She and Selina were both surprised to find that most of the plants in Ivy’s lab were still doing pretty alright, but they quickly realized Ivy just had a pretty effective hydraulics set up to tend to them 24/7. They were lucky they had arrived when they did because the jugs of water that fed several trays of sprouts were just about empty.

They refilled the jugs and left them for now, and Harley had to face the fact that this apartment was suddenly far smaller than she remembered. All they had left was to check the bedroom.

“I could check for you? Bring them out if they’re alive?” Selina offered.

Ivy had opened her home to _Harley_. She would have expected Harley to take care of her babies if she was gone for a weekend, this was no different.

They were her responsibility.

Shaking her head, Harley swallowed the mass in her throat and turned the doorknob.

Little Timmy and Steve were two beautiful moth orchids. Steve was big with pretty purple flowers while little Timmy was half Steve’s size and had little white flowers. When she first moved in Harley begged Ivy to let her have an orchid for her bedside table to they could match, but the white orchid was all Ivy could find in her collection.

“I don’t keep many orchids.” Ivy had explained. “They’re testy little plants. As long as they’re satisfied they’re quiet and complacent. If one thing’s off, either the pots too small or they have too much or too little water, they’ll _complain_.”

They were the only plants Ivy would keep in her room, though. She said if she kept them close she could keep their complaining to a minimum. Every morning Ivy would open the blinds for them and place them closer to the window so they’d get full sun for a few hours, and then every night she and Harley would bring them back to the bedside and shut the blinds.

It was their little nightly routine that Harley hadn’t realized she had so deeply missed.

They were both dead.

…

“So, what now?” Selina asks. Harley had to sit down on the couch for a good long cry after seeing they were gone.

Harley shrugged, still holding Steve’s pot in her hands and looking down on the wilted leaves through blurry eyes.

Suddenly, she couldn’t stand the quiet surrounding them. Ivy wasn’t home. She was never coming home. She angrily decided that she was going to make noise.

Reaching to the coffee table before them, she took up the tv remote and flicked on the news. She turned the volume up until Selina asked if she was alright, and then she turned it up even more. She wanted to drown out the world with her noise.

Riddler had pulled some shenanigans at the bank downtown, Metropolis was invaded by another monster, and the Justice League was getting hounded by the news again. Nothing new. Nothing exciting. Just as Harley was about to change the channel, an image flashed before her eyes.

It was a report about a company buying up the old factory and the land around it just outside Gotham. Harley knew that factory like the back of her hand. She had shut it down probably twenty times over with Ivy because it dumped waste directly into the canal. No matter what business purchased it or who took control over it, no one fixed this flaw, and every time Ivy chased them off the lesson never stuck.

“It’s been bought?” Harley asked.

“WHAT?!” Selina shouted over the sound of the tv.

Putting it on mute, Harley turned to Selina. “The Factory by the canal. It’s been bought again.”

“The one Ivy frequented?”

“Yeah. It’s gonna be a saw mill again.”

“Well, that was it’s original purpose.”

“You think the new owners are gunna fix the dumping issue?”

“What do you think?”

Harley looked back at the tv and they were showing a picture of the man that owned the company that bought the factory. Slicked back hair, tidy grey suit with a bright red tie. Not a person you’d think would own a saw mill.

A thought hit her like a truck.

“Ivy’s not here to stop em.”

The words hung between them for a moment.

“No, she’s not.” Selina said sadly.

Harley felt a fire grow in her stomach. She wondered at first if she was just so angry she was gonna throw up, but then she decided she wasn’t gonna be sick and knew she needed to do something with this anger.

She stewed over it for maybe half a second before getting an idea.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art for the story- https://echowolfs.tumblr.com/post/636228802285109248/curse-of-poison-ivy-pamela-isley-was-dead-six  
> if the link doesn't work, hit up my tumblr: echowolfS

“Harley, this is a really bad idea.” Selina warned as Harley began looking a little closer at the sprouts in Ivy’s lab.

Her plan was still in its development phase, but the thesis was simple enough: If Poison Ivy couldn’t defend nature in and around Gotham anymore, Harley had to take up the mantle. Sure, her thesis didn’t have any prongs yet, but she felt Ivy’s lab might give her a little inspiration.

It felt wrong being in there without Ivy. Ivy didn’t like anyone being in her lab unless she was right there too, barking at them about not touching her experiments or playing with her chemicals. Harley had spent a lot of time in the lab with Ivy regardless of her attitude- mainly from her designated chair in the middle of the room away from all the shelves and tables and such. She just wished she had paid better attention to what Ivy said whenever she rambled about her projects.

Because nothing in this fucking lab was labeled in any way Harley could understand. She could recognize chemical formulas as chemical formulas, but she didn’t know what they were and wasn’t about to find out what they could do without some sort of reference.

“Harls, Ivy’s got some really dangerous stuff in here. We should just ask Batman to clear it out- or better yet, call a hazardous waste company and have them dispose of it all. Ivy always said that-”

“’Responsible waste management is a step towards a better world.’” Harley finished the quote, trying to ignore her annoyance that Selina was trying to quote Ivy to make her stop. “I gotta do something, Kitty. That factory hasn’t been touched in like two years cuz’ of Ivy’s hard work. Now she’s gone every slimy, waste-dumping, two-bit business is gonna be looking to gobble that place up. If we use Ivy’s trademarks to run em off again maybe they’ll figure her ghost is haunting the place and steer clear forever.”

“I get your logic, I really do, but we don’t know even a quarter of the stuff she’s been toying with in here and pretending like we do is just gonna get us hurt or killed. I’m sure we can make it look like Pam’s come back for vengeance without all this stuff.” Selina tried to reason, but ice had formed in Harley’s stomach.

“Don’t call her that.” Harley glared over her shoulder.

Selina furrowed her eyebrows. “What? ‘Pam?’ That’s her name, Harley.”

The name felt like a glacier moving through her body. It was cold and sharp and started crawling up her lungs and throat as it worked its way up, threatening to pierce her heart. She winced against it, distantly feeling Selina’s hands gently holding her shoulders as the feeling overcame her.

_I’ve gotta protect her work… I’ve gotta! For Ivy!_

She used anger to melt the feeling, but it didn’t go away. She felt the slush settle in her gut, threatening to ripple and slosh up her body again if she made too sudden of a move.

“ _Ivy_ ’s work needs to be protected.” Harley managed to hiss out through her teeth as she pulled away from Selina’s grip. “And since _Ivy_ isn’t here anymore, someone else has gotta do it.”

“And that person’s you?” Selina challenged, but there was no bite in her voice. “Harls, you’ve said it yourself. You’ve got a black thumb. Fiddling with Pa- _Ivy_ ’s stuff is gonna end badly for all of us.”

“No one else is gonna do it.” Harley moved away from the cabinets and began examining the trays of plants strewn about the lab tables and taking up another full rack on the back wall. “I remember Ivy was working hard on these. Called them the ‘next big thing’. Don’t quite remember what they were for, though.”

“Maybe we should check her computer?” Selina motioned to the old, boxy machine and the broken, ancient keyboard. “Jesus, how old is this thing?”

“Twenty years, minimum.” Harley couldn’t help but smile as she remembered seeing it for the first time.

_“Jesus, Pammie, maybe you should invest in a computer that ain’t from the stone age?” Harley had said._

_“It’s got all of the data programs I need and isn’t easy to steal.” Ivy had chided. “Besides. No one nowadays knows how to deal with floppy discs, so I think my work is pretty safe in it, too.”_

She remembered ribbing Ivy about it for years afterwards, but Ivy had eventually allowed her to cover the boxy dinosaur in colorful stickers and not another word about it was said. She saw Selina smile at the little kitty stickers that adorned the border of the monitor.

The memory bit her as it ended, and she felt ice form in the hollow of her stomach. She battled the feeling away by turning back to the sprouts.

“Ivy made sure I’d never figure out the password. I’ve always figured it out before but she’s stumped me with this last one. It’s been six months since she changed it last.” Harley said as she tapped one of the plants lightly.

The little leaf felt… strange. Harley only slightly brushed it off. Most of Ivy’s plants felt weird. Like you were touching someone’s arm and they had their muscles tensed. The leaf barely bounced at her prodding, even when she tapped it harder a second time.

“You really don’t remember Ivy talking about these things?” Selina joined her and touched a different plant, physically recoiling at the wrongness of its feeling.

“Nothin’ useful. She’d be talking a mile a minute about them whenever she did, and it was always sciency jargon that I couldn’t make heads or tails of.” Harley tried pulling on one of the leaves. There were at least a hundred sprouts. She didn’t think dissecting one for the sake of science would do too much harm.

The leaf didn’t break off, though. It was like pulling someone’s arm. She felt the… the ‘muscles’ in the plant move and strain against her, but she knew it wasn’t breaking unless she really tore at it. And the idea of tearing the fleshy leaf off made her gag a little.

“There’s something seriously wrong with those plants.” Selina grimaced at the plant as Harley gave up pulling on the leaf and dug at the soil with her fingers.

Ivy always said the roots were the most important part of the plants. They weren’t very tall outside of the soil, but as she dug she found the stems of the little things went far deeper than she expected. Eventually, she felt the plant split and dug around a bit to loosen the smaller roots. But she quickly found that there were only two large roots that were covered in tiny hairs.

“Uhh, I think this guy’s weirder than we thought…” Harley said as she pulled the small plant out of the soil.

She cradled it in her hands so she and Selina could get a better look at it, and that’s when she noticed the two little bulges that were right next to each other a little more than half way up the stem.

“It’s… it’s almost like it’s got…” Harley leaned in a little closer just as the little bulges quivered a bit, and then opened.

“Oh my _fucking **God**_!!!” Selina stumbled backwards as the little plant blinked up at Harley and then stretched out its little roots and _yawned_. Parts of its stem peeled up a bit and made little arms and its leaves trembled as it wiggled to life.

“Its… so… _cute!!!_ ” Harley cried and immediately cradled the little plant close to her chest.

_It was alive! Ivy’s babies are really **alive**!!! This was so great! So **Amazing!** So- _

“OW!” Harley recoiled as something bit her collarbone and she pulled the plant away from herself. The little plant had little specks of blood around its planty mouth and all at once Harley felt this strange sense of doom.

The feeling was quickly disregarded as a plan began formulating in her mind.

“Did it bite you?!” Selina tried to get a look at the bite mark, but Harley turned away and held up the little squirming plant thing.

“This is it…”

“What? A man eating plant? Very on brand for Ivy, I must say.” Selina tried again to take a look at the mark but Harley turned on her heel and looked over the other little plants.

“This is the answer! I can get a bunch of these little plant guys to scare away those saw mill freaks! We can plant them around the foundation of the building and when the workers dig them up to start renovating… BAM! Attack of Ivy’s Babies!”

“We are not calling them that.” Selina deadpanned.

“I’m not hearing any other suggestions.” Harley shot back as she changed her grip on the plant when it tried to bite her hands.

“Attack of the man-eating plants?” Selina suggested. “Or deceptively cute sprouts? Maybe fleshy veggies would be more your style?”

“Ivy’s Babies are what I’m calling them.” Harley stood firm even against ‘fleshy veggies’. Maybe that could be their scientific name.

“Harley, listen, not that this plain certainly wouldn’t scare the pants off of the workers, Batman would be all over them in a minute and it isn’t like they aren’t squishable. They’re not very big.” Selina leaned against the table and crossed her arms.

“They’ve got a mean bite.” Harley pushed up her shoulder to show off the bitemark and Selina immediately lunged for her, smacking the plant away from her hands. “What the hell, Kitty?!”

“The bite’s green!” Selina shouted as she chased the little sprout as it skittered away from Selina in fear.

“What?” Harley asked, a little dazed. Pulling out her phone, she opened her camera and used it as a mirror to look at the bite. Sure enough, it was a nasty yellow green barely two minutes after the bite.

But it was fine. Harley was inoculated against all of Ivy’s poisons… right?

Well, now that she thought about it, Harley couldn’t really feel her legs.

Oh, and she was seeing lots of visual snow at the edges of her vision…

Well, fuck.

Selina was shouting for Harley to help her kill the sprout, but Harley simply sat down and waited for the inevitable. It was maybe a minute or two later that Harley heard ringing in her ears and her vision clouded entirely as Selina shouted about it crawling in a crack in the wall.

…

Selina said Harley was out for four hours.

The bite had festered and puffed up pretty quickly, but Selina used a scalpel she found in a drawer to cut away the worst of the infection in a desperate attempt to do the smallest bit of damage control. Harley had to stitch herself up alone since Selina was squeamish about doing that sort of stuff to other people and only did it when absolutely necessary.

“What happened?” Harley asked once she was done and had made a proper mess of her and Ivy’s couch.

“Well, the sprout got away...” Selina began, but then was quickly sidetracked by a crashing sound coming from the lab.

The dread Harley had felt hours earlier returned in full force and they both raced back to the lab. Selina threw open the door, and it was like looking into a green horror scene. The sprout apparently was somewhat intelligent, because it had freed it’s still planted sprout brethren. And now they were all looking at Selina and Harley with their beady little eyes.

“Uhh…” Harley stammered, fumbling for words as one sprout pointed its little leafy appendages at her and Selina and _squealed._

And suddenly, a tiny forest of sprouts were charging them.

Without a word to each other, Harley and Selina turned on their heels and bolted.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: Ah yes, two prewritten chapters is plenty of pre-writing for a five chapter story  
> Life: lol

They ran and didn’t stop until they were safely back in Selina’s apartment, with Selina cursing Harley and Ivy all the way.

“I’m calling Batman.” Selina said as soon as she caught her breath and got a hold of her anger. Harley knew deep down she was just freaked out by the sprouts and didn’t mean the things she said about Ivy being a ‘stupid fucking bitch’ for creating them, but it still stung.

Selina went into the kitchen for the phone call, leaving Harley alone to tease her wound and feel the jolts of pain from the sore skin. She should have known Ivy’s Babies wouldn’t be very human-friendly. It wasn’t the sprout’s fault. She was just so excited to have something left of Ivy that she knew the redhead loved and adored above all else.

A deeper pain bubbled through her chest and Harley really started pushing on the wound, trying to drown out pain with pain. It didn’t work. It only made her eyes water and her lip quiver. Selina came back in the room and Harley tried to turn away, but she knew. Kitty always knew how she was feeling.

“Listen, Harley, I know how much those sprouts meant to you, but it can’t be helped. Ivy’s brand isn’t human friendly, we both know that.” She began gently, wrapping an arm around Harley’s shoulder and sitting next to her on the couch. “Batman’s gonna handle the sprouts before something bad happens. In the meantime, let’s try and think up some way to clear out that factory on our own, okay?”

Harley nodded and the movement made the tears spill out of her eyes. Selina held her tightly as she cried.

…

Harley really wanted to believe Selina- that they’d kick out those sawmill freaks for good this time and Batman would handle the sprouts and she’d never have to see or hear about them again, but it was barely four hours later and the Gotham news was covered with headlines like ‘Attack of the man eating plants” and “Green-pocalypse” and the like. They weren’t even good names. And they were a touch over dramatic if you asked Harley.

Selina had gone out to help Batman solve the sprout problem by raiding Ivy’s lab again for any sort of clues, but with that dinosaur of a computer she didn’t expect even the World’s Greatest Detective to find anything for a couple of days.

The only good thing about this was some lowlife reporter had caught on to the timing of the sprouts. Just two months after the death and burial of Poison Ivy, a company buys out the factory that Ivy had broken down time and time again in order to defend the canal, and now killer sprouts were on the loose? Yeah, he thought that was a pretty interesting coincidence too.

And once he threw out his theory, the entire city was in hysteria about the ‘Curse of Poison Ivy’. There were already three interviews of the new mill owner saying he didn’t believe Gotham was being haunted by Poison Ivy’s ghost and plans were to go ahead on schedule. He was questioned about the dumping aspect that Ivy had always campaigned against too, but he brushed those off by just saying many alterations were going to be made to the factory.

Harley didn’t trust that at all.

What really caught her attention, though, was this new guy was really playing it up for the cameras. She knew he was probably trying to put on a good face for the cameras since he was buying up a property with quite the reputation, but he really seemed to be trying to win the camera over to his side… specifically by inviting a certain news channel to a tour of the renovations they were doing to the factory. The interview was for noon the very next day.

Harley knew she didn’t have much time, but her brain was already in overdrive.

Borrowing a bike from the neighbor’s kid, Harley biked down to the dingy drug store that certainly shouldn’t have been in such a nice corner of Gotham and bought out their stock of green makeup and body paint, found a curly blonde wig, and the brightest, fire engine red hair dye she could find.

The town was already buzzing about Poison Ivy haunting the city. This could _really_ work!

On her way out phase two of her plan hit her before she was really ready. She saw one of the sprouts take a flying leap from a telephone pole onto a little girl’s head. Seeing an opportunity, Harley lunged for the plant and grabbed it by its weird green throat. She ended up tearing a good chunk of hair out of the girl’s head, but she and her mom were far more grateful for Harley stopping it from eating her face to notice.

Shoving the sprout in her bag, Harley smiled, bowed, and made her way to the pet store.

There, she bought the biggest cat carrier she could find and threw the sprout in the back of it. The carrier was made of hard plastic and metal, so try as it did, the little sprout couldn’t chew through it. She caught another sprout on the way back to Selina’s and found another chasing the neighbor kids who were probably out looking for the bike she borrowed. She nabbed the third and weaved up some excuse about the bike before scurrying back inside with her finds.

Even now, the plan was still formulating in her head as Harley snuck into Selina’s room and found some pantyhose and a nice one piece bathing suit. Harley didn’t have Selina’s shape exactly, but that wasn’t anything that bobby pins couldn’t fix.

Grabbing her bat from the side of the couch and stuffing everything she could in a backpack, Harley grabbed the carrier and caught the bus down to the edge of town. She caught another two sprouts as she trekked out to the old factory and ignored the construction signs as she walked into the property.

The sprouts had caused enough of a fuss that pretty much everyone in Gotham was getting half-days at work, so no one was there to shout at her about trespassing or anything. It was all too perfect, and now she really began to put her planning skills to work.

…

She worked all night and all that next morning. The sawmill was a working construction site so she had plenty of tools and things to use to pull this off in a grand way. When the time for the interview came rolling around, Harley painted herself green and readied her wig and costume. She also gave a quick pep-talk to the sprouts and hid herself in the rafters of the building.

She pulled out her phone and listened for her cue on the news site.

“This is Kat Rogers from Gotham at 4, reporting to you live from the abandoned sawmill…” She heard the reporter in both reality and through her phone, so she knew they were close. She watched the smug grin on the new owner’s face as the reporter lady introduced him. “With all of the rumors about Poison Ivy haunting the city now, are you still certain that buying this mill was a good decision? The now deceased rogue was pretty militant about this place. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is where the sprouts originated.”

“Unfortunately, no.” The creep laughed, running his fingers across his greasy looking, slicked back hair. “The sprouts didn’t come from here, I’m afraid. I will admit that when they appeared I was worried for the safety of my workers, especially since this place was so near and dear to Poison Ivy, but we have been checking up on the property all night and haven’t seen a single sprout in the vicinity.”

Yeah, that was a big fat lie. Harley hadn’t seen anyone all afternoon, night, or morning. It made her blood boil as he continued on and on about how the sawmill was going to be completely gutted and refurbished. The illegal dumping problem was going to be taken care of according to Gotham city standards- which meant they were going to find every loophole they could in order to continue dumping their chemicals and shit into the canal that ran out of the city.

It was really pissing her off.

Like, _really_ pissing her off.

Harley could feel heat rising in her chest and face, and her body was so tense with rage she was sure she was trembling. Still, she waited patiently and watched through her phone as the crooked creep led the news lady and her cameras into the sawmill and started showing off all the construction and painting the picture of how the _new_ sawmill is going to be run.

Harley turned off her phone as their voices in the real world grew louder, and she looked down from her place in the rafters and saw them slowly working their way to the ‘X’ she had marked on the ground. She stood carefully and tried to shake out a little of the tension in her shoulders.

It didn’t work, but Harley knew she was going to miss her shot if she didn’t hurry.

Finally, the interviewer and interviewee were in position, and Harley jumped into action. With the cat crate in one hand, she jumped down to the metal platform below her and barked a sharp, deep “Hey!” to catch their attention.

She had thought seeing the surprise on their faces would be satisfying. She thought that seeing the fear they still held for Poison Ivy would remind Harley of how Gotham still remembered and respected all that Poison Ivy was.

It didn’t. Instead, the ice in her stomach froze over her gut while a fiery anger raged in her heart.

It wasn’t satisfying to see them still deeply fear Poison Ivy. The fear in their eyes was just another confirmation that Ivy had gone too soon. The sawmill guy went white as a sheet, confirming to Harley that he had no plans to take the high road on ethical sawmilling, proving Ivy’s presences was still a necessary force in this world. 

But Ivy was gone and dead. _Really_ dead. And Harley couldn’t keep up the charade forever.

It wasn’t right.

It wasn’t fair.

And as the shock wore off, Harley forgot her entire speech about defending the ecosystem and canal and tore open the cat carrier, pulling out a sprout and shouting, “Fuck off!” as she threw the squealing plant at the man’s face.

She hit him right in the nose, and the sprout clung to him like a cartoon starfish. He shrieked as the sprout bit his eyebrow and held on like it’s little life depended on it. Harley went to reach for another sprout but the others had already made a break for it and were clambering down the platform away from her.

The camera man and news lady turned tail and ran before Harley could recover and think of something else to say. Grumbling and cursing under her breath, Harley jumped off of the platform and escaped out of a side door as the creep finally pulled the sprout from his face and fled the building.

She didn’t wait to find out if everyone got out and safely away form the sawmill. Once she was about a hundred meters from the building, she pulled a tiny remote control from her fake boob and hit the small red button in the middle.

It took maybe two seconds before the little toy robot she had jerry-rigged to lite a lighter and then walk into a massive vat of sawmill chemicals left behind by prior owners and workers. The building was up in a mushroom cloud before even the sound of the boom hit her. It was deafening when it did reach her, and her ears were ringing, but the fire of the sawmill had managed to melt the ice in her belly and it cooled the rage in her heart. It left her feeling empty and hollow, and Harley did the only thing she could think of.

Selina was waiting for her when she got back. She took a dip in the canal to wash off the body paint and ditched the wig in a trash bin somewhere. She saw a sprout chasing a dog on her way back and something deep within her told her to catch it, and so she did. Selina really wasn’t happy with her coming up to her door in the state she was in, in a ruined one piece bikini and panty hose with a sprout with it’s mouth taped in her hands, but she let her in all the same.

She let Harley sit on her couch and then Harley let her hold a phone with a news headline on her face.

_“Ivy Wanabe Behind the Chaos?”_

Below it was a picture from the news, of Harley standing there in her terrible Poison Ivy costume looking on the verge of tears mid throw as she hurled a sprout towards the camera.

The headline cut her deep. No more Ivy haunting Gotham, no more curse on the city… she had gone and ruined that too. She didn’t even look kind of like Ivy. Just like some emotionally unstable freak who couldn’t even put a wig on right.

Harley hugged the sprout close and it squealed through the tape in protest.

“Harls, I think you need more help than I can give.” Selina began carefully. “I’ve talked to Batman, and if you really don’t want to go to Arkham, he can find somewhere else.”

Harley felt sick, but she knew Selina was right. The Harleen that lived inside of her knew it was the best thing for her to do, but her voice wouldn’t admit it. She felt a shiver go through her body and Selina sat next to her and rubbed her shoulder as she waited it out.

Finally, she managed to nod her head.

“I”ll call Batman.” She could feel the relief in Selina’s voice.

…

Therapy was gonna have to wait a while, because Gotham was really in the thick of it barely a week later.

Batman had gotten her accepted into some grieving program at some farm in the middle-nowhere’s-ville Kansas, but the sprouts apparently were very prolific procreators. Batman had managed to round up quite a few of the sprouts in the first day of their assault on everything meaty in the city, but by the very next morning there was double the number of sprouts running around in the first place.

Harley gave up her still living sprout in order for Batman to figure out how they’re able to reproduce so quickly, but by then the sprouts were already quadroupling their numbers. It was getting so bad so fast, and in the far back of Harley’s head she mourned the fact that Ivy had finally stumped Batman but wasn’t around to see it.

Still, she couldn’t just let the sprouts overrun the city. She saw one eat a cat the other day, and that had turned her opinion on Ivy’s Babies very quickly.

She and Selina geared up with as much pesticide as Batman and his little birds could find, but the sprouts had very tough skin and would only get mad at being sprayed in the face. They eventually took to using bats and whips and shoes to squish them, gagging all along the way at how their bodies squished and popped as they took out every single sprout they could find.

It was awful and Harley hated every second of it, but she knew they needed to go.

Maybe two days later Harley got the brilliant idea that plants are flammable and therefore the sprouts could be easily taken care of. Too bad she never asked Batman if he had already flame tested the stupid things.

Because after acquiring a ‘legal’ flamethrower, Harley lit a whole flock of little baby sprouts up… And they proceeded to run shrieking into the nearest buildings to get away from her. Harley wanted to curl up in a corner and die of shame because after two more days half of Gotham was up in flames.

The flamethrower she had ended up getting turned into a high tech super soaker and her new job was now to hunt down as many of the flaming sprouts as possible.

It was awful. Everything was awful.

And _all_ of it was her fault.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time is relative. Pretend it's Monday.

Batman was at his wits end. Ivy was rarely ever three steps ahead of him, but she had a level of patience and paranoia that even he lacked when it came to protecting her life’s work. It was taking far too long for his computers to comprehend the sticker covered relic that Ivy had the audacity to call a computer. He had run his own tests on the sprouts- which Harley had named _Ivy’s Babies_ , and come up with only more questions than answers.

Ivy’s powers had grown exponentially from her first few years of being an eco-terrorist. Before, she could only control plants that she had created self, but now she was able to manipulate and mutate any type of organic plant material even without touching it.

And Ivy had really outdone herself on this little passion project. Half of the genes that his computer could recognized were pulled from hundreds of rare plants that Ivy had collected over the years and the other half was anyone’s guess. His computer did manage to isolate some genes that were more animal-like, which probably explained the instinct to actively hunt down anything and everything that breathed, but even those were so severely spliced that his computers couldn’t pinpoint what type of animals they even came from.

He was genuinely and utterly stumped, and that wasn’t acceptable.

He stress-tested every sprout his team managed to catch alive, doused them in herbicides, pesticides, and all sorts of corrosive poisons, and he dissected the bags of dead ones in order to figure out how they function and possibly how they are able to reproduce so fast. He unfortunately found that all of the sprouts are able to produce both seeds and spores in unfathomable amounts, but it seemed that only so many seeds were able to grow up and reproduce as effectively as their parents. It was the only good news he had managed to scrounge up all week.

He had also flame tested the sprouts in the lab but quickly learned that while they were flammable, they took far too long to burn to death. Too bad he hadn’t informed Harley of this in time. Now Gotham was on the verge of burning down in the midst of the most unusual but effective Poison Ivy attack he had ever seen.

And to top it all off Ivy was dead far before any of this started, and therefore he had lost access to the one person that could solve this crisis with a snap of her fingers. Ivy had wanted these things to be damn near indestructible, and Batman was more than a little glad that she wasn’t alive to lead her horde of man eating plants in any sort of organized way.

“How’s the computer going?” Batman asked Oracle on his way out of the Cave after a long night out catching sprouts.

“Nothing new. I hope Ivy is rotting in hell for making me deal with this monstrosity.” Barbara spat as she tore off a sticker that was covering up a large crack in the shell of the computer.

“I’m surprised Ivy ever had the patience do bother with such a thing.” Nightwing commented as he returned to the cave with another bag full of sprout carcasses.

“Ivy had a quick temper, but immeasurable patience when it came to her lab experiments.” Batman turned to leave as Nightwing emptied his bag of the little bodies, but then one sprout caught his eye.

“Wait, give me that one there.” Batman turned on his heel and approached Nightwing. He picked up the plant himself before his former partner could respond and turned it around in his hands. It was like all the other sprouts, but the leaves on its head were the same fiery red of Ivy’s hair.

“Barbara, you compared the sprouts DNA to Ivy’s, correct?”

“Yeah, same markers with all of the other plants she’s genetically mutated.” Oracle didn’t seem to be catching on to his thought.

Placing the sprout back down, Batman touched the commlink at his ear. “Alfred, please retrieve a shovel from the shed and bring it down to the batcave.

“Right away, sir.”

“Bruce, what’s the plan here?” Nightwing hurried after him as he approached the main computer and searched up the contact information of the graveyard Ivy was buried in.

“We’ve always dealt with Ivy’s plants in the same way- by taking out the source, but with Ivy gone we’ve overlooked all of our past victories against her.” He said as he dialed the number into the computer.

“Gotham Cemetary, how can I be of assistance?”

“I need to exhume a grave on your grounds.”

“That’s a pretty pricy ask, my friend. What’s the plot number?”

“Number 83, row thirty-two, plot name; Poison Ivy.”

After confirming who he was and explaining it might solve the sprout crisis, the graveyard gladly waved the fee and welcomed him at the gate of the grave which was already half dug out by workers.

“Her grave’s really freaked out the visitors as of late,” the owner of the graveyard had said when he came out to help Batman and his workers dig. “The flowers that Harley Quinn left her never wilted and I had them taken away. The grass grows twice as fast around here now and these tiny little weeds have been taking over the plot.”

Batman tried not to be too disturbed by that, but his mouth went dry when they finally reached the simple casket. It was covered in vines and roots. Feeling a sudden sense of dread, he sent the workers away and cut through the vines on his own.

When he got the casket open, he could barely believe what he saw.

…

Gotham genuinely might not recover from her own stupidity.

Hey, at least it might have made Ivy proud- so long as she didn’t ever find out that it was Harley that set her babies on fire.

“Stupid fucking baby plants!” Harley muttered under her breath as she shot one with her oversized water gun, putting out it’s flames and knocking the sense out of it for a moment. She hurried to grab it before it could get away, but she wasn’t quite quick enough. It jumped right over her head as she dove for it, and skittered away faster than she could recover.

“Fuck you!” Harley shrieked after it.

“What in the hell is going on here?!” An exasperated voice asked and Harley flinched at the sound of it.

Harley wondered if she was hearing things, because she knew that tone well. It was when Ivy was really at her wits end with her antics. Harley was pratically trained to stop whatever she was doing when she heard that tone of voice.

What really sucked was that voice sounded so similar to Ivy’s…

Sniffing, Harley stood up and dusted off the gravel from her arms before looking to whoever had spoken. As soon as she looked into spring green eyes, Harley’s mind went blank.

“I-Ivy?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Lizzar for the amazing idea!  
> I hope you all enjoy the final chapter!

It had been an exceptionally cold night, even for early spring. Ivy had wanted to stay in since she was still working her way out of her winter depression, but Harley had insisted. She had insisted because she was sure the rush of a quick crime would finally bring her back to her old self.

The plan was to hit a bank before it had even been fully built. Ivy liked strategy. She liked playing waiting games and profiting months, probably even years later. Harley had the entire thing planned out so Ivy would just get to enjoy the fun of the crime.

It had been _so_ easy.

They broke into the construction site under the cover of darkness and filled the unmixed concrete with tiny seeds and sprouts the size of Harley’s pinky were hidden in the pipes still left in piles all around the floor. It was when they hid the last of the sprouts when Batman had arrived.

Ivy wasn’t in the mood for a fight, so they ran.

The entire block was under construction. Next to the bank was a half finished hotel, and next to the hotel was some sort of double decker shopping center that wasn’t quite big enough to be called a mall. They went into the hotel first as it was probably gonna be one of the easiest place to lose him in.

And it was. Ivy used her vines like grappling hooks to pull them up the hole for the elevator, and then slingshot them around a corner. They were doing so well, but then Batman found them through a window and was after them again.

Ivy didn’t want to jump to the mall. The bank was closer to being finished than the hotel, and the hotel was more done than the mall- but that still wasn’t saying much. Harley reassured her it was fine, so they jumped the gap.

The next ten-ish minutes were ten minutes Harley would never forget in her entire life.

_“Harley, if we get to the crane I can get us to the rooftops and we can get out of here!” Ivy had said._

_“Batsy’s **known** for swinging from rooftops, Pam-a-lamb! We gotta get to the streets and into the sewers! Then you can use the moss and mushrooms down there to trip him up!” Harley had insisted. _

_“No! I don’t have the strength to grow anything in complete darkness right now! We need to go to the crane!”_

_But Harley hadn’t listened. She heard the stress in Ivy’s voice as self-doubt. Ivy was strong. Ivy could do anything._

_She was an invulnerable, impenetrable, unstoppable force of nature._

_Harley thought she was helping her come back… But when Harley moved first- ran around a half put up wall and curtain and the floor caved in from under her, Ivy was the one to play hero. She dove head first into the hole after Harley, pulled her chose and covered her head, curling their bodies together and shifting their momentum so Ivy fell back first into a pile of pipes._

_The fall had knocked the sense out of Harley for a moment. She rolled down the pile of pipes when she slipped from Ivy’s arms. A strangled sound brought the world back into sharp focus._

_Despite the pain in her ribs and the pounding headache that was quickly developing in the back of her skull, Harley scrambled to her hands and knees and climbed back up to Ivy’s twitching body._

_Her eyes were wide but rolling up in the back of her head, and her neck was at a strange angle. It sounded like she was suffocating, and what little medical training Harley could remember told her that her neck was very likely broken._

_Her airway was either compromised or cut off by the break. Harley prayed it was the latter. She could do something about the latter. In complete and utter desperation, Harley cupped her lover’s cheeks and tried to carefully pull her head into a better-looking position._

_“Harley, no!” She heard Batman’s shout but ignored it._

_Even with how carefully she was moving Ivy’s head, she heard a small pop, and Ivy went limp._

_Completely limp._

**_Dead_ ** _limp._

_Harley felt her body grow cold and her stomach was suddenly both very hollow and very heavy at the same time._

_“Pammie?” Her voice was a squeak. “Pamela?!”_

_Batman was suddenly across from her, on the other side of Ivy’s body._

_He checked her pulse on both her wrist and neck, shined a little light in her eyes… and then bowed his head._

_She touched Pamela’s face carefully, hesitantly. She felt her skin grow colder by the moment, and she trailed her hands down her neck and then around her shoulders and back. She pulled Pamela close to her chest and held her tightly._

_“Wh-what have I done?”_

…

It wasn’t possible. It _couldn’t_ have been possible.

But there she was.

Poison Ivy, Pamela Isley, was standing just across the street from her.

“What in the hell happened?!” Her voice was the same. Her exasperated look was the same.

Selina was with them, on one side of Ivy, and Batman was on the other.

“I’ve told you time and time again not to bother the projects in my lab!” Ivy looked angry as she marched towards Harley, and it was so familiar that it hurt.

Harley was stuck to where she was standing. She couldn’t move… couldn’t breathe…

“Harley?! Are you even _listening_ to me?!” Ivy was an arm’s reach away, and finally the world clicked back into place.

Harley lunged forwards, wrapping her arms around Pamela’s neck and burying her face in the crook of her neck. She took a shaky breath in and sobbed as her senses were filled with the smell of the green woman’s skin and hair. She smelled earthy and new, and yet also like Pamela. She felt arms wrap around her and sobbed again. Her knees became weak and Pamela eased them both to the ground.

She wailed and wailed until she had no more tears to cry and her voice had become hoarse and raw. And Pamela still just held her, stroking her back and whispering reassuring words into her ear. When the majority of the shock wore off, Harley pulled back and looked into Pamela’s pretty spring green eyes and found them teary and red as well.

“What… how…” Harley couldn’t even form a question without hiccupping.

“I’m not quite sure.” Pamela reached between them and wiped away a few tears from Harley’s cheek with her thumb. “All I know is I woke up in that damn casket with Batman looking down on me a couple hours ago and may or may not have developed claustrophobia because of it.”

Harley tried to laugh but it just turned into more crying and Pamela had to hold her through it again.

“Hate to break up the reunion, girls, but Gotham’s still on fire and the tiny sprouts are still a thing that is very much happening right now.” Selina knelt next to them and placed a hand on Harley’s shoulder.

“Right,” Pamela wiped at her face a moment and then raised a hand. She snapped her fingers, and then all of the sprouts in the vicinity began running towards them. They jumped and clambered at each other, their leafy skins growing together and melding into a weird plant thing that continued to grow as more sprouts- even the ones that were on fire, joined. Once the final sprout jumped onto the pile, it took the shape of a large tree, and stopped moving all together. “There, done.”

“Even the ones developing in the ground?” Batman asked.

“Yes, even the half-developed ones from the ground.” Pamela rolled her eyes as she helped Harley to her feet. Harley still clung to her side, not willing to let her best friend slip away from her grasp again.

“I need to know your take over plan involving these things.” Selina asked as they looked up at the big sprout-tree. “Like, asap.”

“There was no take over plan.” Pamela sighed.

“You’re kidding.” Batman, Harley, and Selina stared at her in shock.

“Not even slightly.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “The idea was two-fold. The original idea was to make a pet-plant. An animal-plant hybrid that hopefully would inspire a little more compassion for the plant world. As I worked I had the idea to give them a bit of a prey drive to be used like barnyard cats or more eco-friendly pesticides for farms. Too bad the passive plants died out suddenly from a fungus they contracted in that ratty ass apartment. The aggressive ones survived… but they were _far_ to aggressive to put to any kind of market.”

The three gawked at her for more than a few seconds but all quietly decided not to push the topic. The damage had been done, it was all over now. It was time to let sleeping dogs lie. Wasn’t like it was Harley’s business anyways. She was just glad to have Pamela back.

“Can we go home?” Harley whispered against Pamela’s chest.

“Of course, Harls.” Pamela bent down and kissed her hair. “Are we done here?”

Batman watched her for a moment, and then nodded. “Stay out of trouble.”

“Apparently I can’t promise that.” She felt the chuckle rumble up Pamela’s throat and smiled as it sent a warm feeling through her body.

“See you two soon, okay?” Selina waved to them as Pamela turned and walked them down the road.

As they were turning the corner, she heard Batman and Selina have a small exchange.

“Never again will I complain about having to deal with Poison Ivy.” Batman muttered.

“What, are you not a fan of Poison Quinn?” Selina teased.

“If I never have to deal with Harley masquerading as Poison Ivy again it will be too soon.”

…

They were maybe halfway home when Harley had a thought. “Ya didn’t wanna take the tree with?”

“Another unforeseen problem with the sprouts was their vehement hatred of each other. I’d give it a week before they come to their senses and swarm the city again.”

Harley stopped dead in her tracks. “Yer kiddin? I thought you handled them?!”

“For the time being. I’ll let Batman know once we’re both safely in the Bahamas.” Pam rubbed her arm reassuringly and hurried her along. “And the week is a rough estimate. Hope the airport hasn’t been shut down.”

“It totally has.”

“Then I guess we’re going on a road trip.” Pamela pulled her close with a smile and Harley laughed into a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have many other Harlivy stories on my page, feel free to check them out :)


End file.
